Pasta is normally prepared by extrusion of a low moisture dough through a die to form the desired shape. Generally, high extrusion head pressures are required due to the high viscosity of the pasta dough. After extrusion, the formed shapes are dried in a process that can take several hours. If not carefully controlled, the pasta can be prone to checking during the drying process.
A number of attempts have been made to provide more workable or machinable dough. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,983 (Mar. 21, 2000) provides a dough-improving or bread-improving composition containing a pyranose oxidase. The pyranose oxidase is reported to exert an oxidizing effect on dough constituents and to improve the strength of gluten structures in the dough and/or baked products and thereby improve the strength of the dough in addition to the rheological and the handling properties of the dough. Other enzymes, such as cellulase, hemicellulase (e.g., pentosanase or xylanase), lipase, oxidase, peroxidase, protease, peptidase, and amylase, can be used in combination with the primary enzyme (i.e., pyranose oxidase) to improve the dough. Pentosanase is reported as being useful for the partial hydrolysis of pentosans when, in turn, increase the extensibility of the dough. Although this patent is mainly directed to dough useful for preparing bread-type products, it is noted in passing that the pyranose oxidase can be used in the preparation of pasta dough.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,982 (Mar. 21, 2000) provides a dough-improving or bread-improving composition containing an L-amino acid oxidase or a benzylamine oxidase to improve gluten strength, stickiness, and rheological properties of the dough as well as the specific volume of the resulting baked goods. The same additional enzymes as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,983 can be used in combination with the primary enzymes (i.e., L-amino acid oxidase or benzylamine oxidase). Although this patent is also mainly directed to dough useful for preparing bread-type products, it is again noted in passing that the L-amino acid oxidase or benzylamine oxidase can be used in the preparation of pasta dough.
Nonetheless, extrusion of pasta products still requires high head extrusion pressures due to the high viscosity of the pasta dough and careful drying of the formed pasta to prevent checking. It would be desirable therefore to provide a more workable or machinable pasta dough that would allow a significant reduction in head extrusion pressure in pasta extruders. Moreover, it would be desirable to provide a pasta dough that allows the production of extruded pasta shapes that are less likely to check during drying. The present invention provides such a pasta dough and a method of preparing such a pasta dough. Indeed, it has surprisingly found that the pasta dough of the present invention has such improved workability that it can be used in a hand-held extrusion system which allows a consumer, including children, to prepare the pasta product in the home kitchen.